we all know now!

I will let the mechanics answer the question about labor.


On flooring, I charge by the foot, just as a mechanic charges for "labor hour". I get the work done 2-3 times faster than a normal person because I have experience and great equipment.

A professional shouldn't get paid less because they are more efficient at doing the job.



Simply put, not all hours are equal.

For ****s sake, why should I explain it. You explained it in the post I quoted below. You and I both know that most book times are not an accurate representation of how long it normally takes to do a job and to claim otherwise is asinine. Inflating an already inflated number is thievery.

As for the second part of your post, you're moving the goal posts.

Please find the dude who ripped off your mirror and buy him a beer for me. This thread made my day.

I would thank the plumber for doing a fast job, I wouldn't ask him to charge me less.

I show the customer exactly what they are paying for from every step of the job long before I even ask for a signature to grant me the permission to work and bill them.

I explain to them how long the job books for, that is it. I don't charge them less if it is done faster, and I don't charge them more if it takes longer. I charge them book.

Yeah, you can. Book Hours are not uniform nor standard, they are not a universal guideline for getting work done. They are just a suggestion for how long a certified mechanic should take. Every place I've ever worked for, ever business I've started, has a book markup to maximize profits.

It is simply business and how it works.

LMAO:LOL:

What the **** makes you think I would know this? I don't think I've ever had a conversation with you before today. I recognize Sauto, but I don't recall ever having much interaction with him. You're making up some bizarre narrative much the same way you make up phony labor charges.

Do the world a favor and spare us your morality lessons. There may be honor among thieves, but in the end, there are no honorable thieves.

All mechanics should just charge by the job instead of having a crazy "Labor Hours" system.

My local mechanic tells me how much the job will cost. He has it figured out. People get confused when they are charged 2.5 hours of labor when it only took 1.9 hours because the mechanic is a badass that is efficient.

then I don't think I would call you a crook or a cheat...If I know what you are doing up front and I agree...then we have a contract.

I'm not honest? Am I not the one here telling you guys exactly how 99.9% of every business is ran except for apparently you butt buddy Sauto.

Listen, he works for a mom and pop shop in BFE, if he opened a shop in KC, he'd be out of business the next day. It doesn't matter how good his work is, or how friendly he is with customers, the sheer cost of business would drive him in the dirt, which is why most people will hire managers to oversee the business and make sure it is ran right. Simple minded folks like Sauto don't have the stomach for business, to crunch numbers night and day so that they can stay in business and provide their service to the public. I do, and I'm being honest and you are reaming me for it?

Sorry for educating the dumb-masses.

Which is why I decided to post at length about this, so people know exactly how this field of business is ran so they know what to expect.

This, somebody knows how business works. It seems like he's one of the few in this thread actively posting who knows the concept of "You get what you pay for" and knows that SPEED and turnaround factors into that.

Who are you to say that the number is already inflated?

In all honesty, unless you are a top notch mechanic, you're going to run pretty close to that book time, if you do it right and follow every step. I've seen guys cut corners and half ass it and do it in half the time, but then again, I don't PAY them to half ass things.

My work is top notch, you get nothing but the best from me, and that includes my anal retentive ways of making sure everything is perfect. You're paying for the best service in KC, and you're going to pay for it. Not because I say so, but because my service is the best, my service comes with degrees and certificates, and because it comes with a work ethic second to none. It will never hurt me to have a mexican take a job away from me, lord knows I've always got work to do anyways.

The point is, every business marks up the book time so they can get 10% here or 10% there.

I've yet to hear you bitch to me about how we markup our parts too, because we make more in the markup of parts than we do in our book times.

Yet, I don't think you'll call that unethical.

Interesting how you argue one side of the coin here, and not the other.

Correct, but I don't believe anyone is arguing they should "catch a break".
What is being argued is that if I have a job that the book says should take 8 hours, is it ethical for Extorter to charge for 10. He may be able to get it done in 4, that's irrelevant. The book (be it Chilton's, AllData, or Mitchell) calls for 8.

So charging that extra 10-25% that he claimed is outright theft.

Give me a ****ing break. You might be able to slip that shit past old ladies who are easy targets for snake oil salesmen, but I'm not some ****ing rube. If you want to charge more, raise your hourly rates.

If you're so swift at twisting wrenches, you deserve to charge more per hour. What you don't get to do is bill customers for work that didn't get done.

I have a personal boxing coach. He charges me by the hour. If he trains me for two hours but bills me for 3.5 saying that he gets 3.5 hours worth of results in two hours, I'm going to tell him to go **** himself. If he's so great, he can charge more per hour. He doesn't get to bill me for work he never did.

A lot of these jobs are paid for by insurance companies. I'd love to see him bill an insurance company for 2.4 hours on a job booked at 2 hours that can actually be done in 90 minutes.

He would never get away with that. Instead, he just rips off customers who don't know any better.

for the record, I'm a good tipper, and understand the need, was just trying to troll hootie

Agreed.

You claim ignorant now? We've argued in probably 3 or 4 threads Saul, you might want to fix that memory before you call an honest man providing a public service announcement, a crook. It looks bad for you.

In all honesty, 50% of the jobs done on a daily basis are flat rate, I'm charging you X dollars to do Y job. That figure, of course, is based loosely on book hour and labor rate, and then discounted slightly to a good looking number, so that I can inspect the car for any other faults so I can make more money fixing more stuff.

Now, when you come in with a Jetta that has a Dual Mass Flywheel that is prone to disintegrating and you want me to A. find the source of the problem and B. fix it, you're going to get book hour.

This business is a contract business, I won't charge you more if I take longer, and I won't charge you more "just because".

I'll inspect the car and its issues and write up a ticket, show you the ticket, and explain to you everything about that ticket so you are comfortable with it before any signatures are done, before any cash is in my bank.

In all honesty, when I had my own shop, I went out of my way to explain exactly what it was that was wrong, why I was fixing, and made every effort I could to get across to my customers what was being done so they were comfortable with it.

Sure, it took a little bit more time, but I NEVER had a case of "WHy did it cost this much" or "Is my car ready yet" after or during the job. My customers dropped off their cars and were 110% confident it would be fixed on time, and that I'd bend over backwards to get it done so.

On this point I'm not going to beat around the bush or try and sugar coat anything.

You're a Goddamned liar.

Like I said, it should just be a "By the job" bidding system, similar to windshield replacement.


That way you don't get ****ed by a slow mechanic that runs up the clock.

Why don't you show me one of those threads, you lying ****ing thief?

Well, I have learned a lot in this thread.

Extorter

That is a completely different ball game.

Because he charges you for the time, I charge you for the job.

According to you, Oil changes should cost 50+ for regular oil at Jiffy Lube because of the time it takes. Despite the fact that they charge PER JOB.

Book hours are a means to estimate how much you should charge for THE JOB, not for the hour.

Diagnostics is a different world. You charge down to the minute for diagnostics. If it takes me 1 hour and 14 minutes to find your issue through diagnostics, you get charged exactly that for it.

There are certain things in this business that go by the hour, there are certain things that go buy the job.

I don't understand why you can't wrap your head around this.

No, a lot of the jobs you got billed for were collision work which exclusively goes by how much time it takes them, however, they too inflate their book hour on regular mechanics work.

I know the owners of the top two collision repair centers in the KC metro on a first name basis, I know for a fact they do.

Which means 3 of us have just schooled you in your world of things that wouldn't get past an adjuster.

You call me a crook, but the biggest business of crooks is done by adjusters.

That's the whole point of those books. If you have a job that should take 3.5 hours, you get charged for 3.5 hours. If it gets done in 3.2 hours because they're fast or 4 because they're slow, the price stays the same...unless you're dealing with a crook. Then, the job takes 3.2 hours and you get charged for 4.5.

How?

Lets make a bet, then.

If I find a thread where you and I argued, your name on CP is forever changed to "lying ****ing thief", if I can't find one, mine is changed forever to "lying ****ing thief".

Do we have an agreement? Or do you back down knowing that I am not wrong, that I am an honest person, and I call it exactly how it is?

I'm not asking for an apology here, you are entitled to say what you want, I'm asking you how far you're willing to go to troll, or if you're being serious right now.

What you just agreed with, is exactly what I've been saying this entire time, only that EVERY BUSINESS IN THE GREATER KANSAS CITY METRO AREA adjusts their program to scale up the book time by a percentage.

Jesus Christ dude. READ!

Good Christ man, are you a ****ing stroke victim? You've flat out stated that you bill for the book time plus 20%...you lying ****ing thief.

Hootie is going to be back in a minute to tell us he just fixed it himself.

gah! foiled!
sec

I think an interesting question to ask Saul is this.

If Mitchell and Alldata, which have been in business far longer than I have, have the option to scale booktime +/- in their software, does that not make them crooks? Despite the fact that they are the industry leaders in approximated "book times".?

I can't wait to see what his mechanic says about the mirror.

No, I've stated that my book time is increased by a percentage.

There is a difference.

well, he did say he has some duct tape

That's exactly the job I see being done by this "mexicans".LMAO

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...JdVEdtDwZLN41k

LMAO

WTF?

http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.47781...14522&pid=15.1

LMAO:LOL: can't stop laughing oh man that cracks me up

The look on the monkey's face is priceless.

That's exactly what I just posted you goddamned inbred.

In case anyone wants to know, an 02 Audi Allroad door mirror's official book time is 1 hour.

No, that isn't EXACTLY what you just posted, you imbecile.
:thumb:

So your contention is that, because the software contains a manual override feature, it's ethical to falsify labor times?

Maybe some jobs take longer than the book lists because of extenuating circumstances. That doesn't mean that you should, as a matter of practice, use this feature in order to bill for hours that were never worked.

I've never claimed that we have never argued about anything. I said it hasn't happened enough for me to remember you. Hopefully I've argued with you every time we've interacted in the past.

I may not watch a lying thief brush his teeth every morning like you do, but I know one when I see one.

You still don't get it, do you?

Those book times are not an industry standard, they are an approximation for how long the service will take a skilled mechanic.

Those book times are what I'm going to show my customers in their quote. I will not charge them more, I will not charge them less.

However, those book times at every business in the metro area are going to have an adjusted scale of 20-30% on top of them.

It isn't illegal, it doesn't make them crooks.

What you also don't know in that software, is that I can manually add or remove book hours on top of that for additional hours applied to the job.

For instance, in Alldata, it tells me to add .5 hours for R&R. I don't actually have to add that, unless I am R&R'ing the part. It allows for a number of configurations that are at the DISCRETION of the business, nothing else.

There is nothing unethical for scaling 10% book hour because your mechanics will take longer than those at a dealership.

There is nothing unethical about scaling 20% book hour because your mechanics are thorough.

So you're backpedaling on your Schwinn?

Glad we got that taken care of.

You seem to know a thief when you see one, perhaps it is because it takes one to know one?

All banter aside, I am no thief, I am perhaps the most absolutely bluntly honest person you will EVER meet. I don't lie, I don't hide, I call it how it is.

And in business, that translates to repeat customers. The fact that I am so thorough that I'd walk them through every step MYSELF is me extending MY services to them.

As a business, my time is precious, and since I do the best job, I'm going to charge you for it, because you aren't just paying for the job to get done. You're paying for the warranty, the liability, and for my 110% top notch service. You certainly aren't paying me for my time to fix it.

If you want to pay for actual time spent wrenching on a car, go find a mobile mechanic on craigslist, because you get what you pay for, and with me, you got only satisfaction, I made it my job to provide that.

So....say you hire me to build a website for you. I give you a quote that it will take me 8 hours of work to complete the job....but I do it in 5 hours. Should I charge you for 5 hours or 8?

If your mechanics are so thorough that it takes them an extra hour to do the job, so be it. That's not even what you're claiming. You say that you spend less time on it that the books say yet you charge for more time. You're a thief.

If you quoted me 8 hours to build a website, and I hired you. I expect you to charge me for 8 hours. That is how contracts work. I have no lawful argument against it even if you told me it only took 5 hours, because I agreed to the contract. I'm not agreeing to the hours, I'm agreeing to the product, of which the price was X@8 hours.

8, but not 10....which Extorter claimed with his additional 25%

If you charge by the hour, 5. He would bill for 10 and congratulate himself on being thorough.

Well what if I knew that it would only take me 7 hours max.....but I quoted you 8. Is that still wrong?

If the job takes 10 hours, which isn't often heard of, yes, I would charge an extra hour.

It doesn't make me a thief if I charged them 11 and it only took me 8, if they agreed on the 11 before I even turned a wrench on the car. It just means my mechanics did good, fast work.

However, if I quoted them 11 hours, took 8, and later upped the BILL to 13 hours, that would make me a thief.

Since I do not raise or lower the quote, it isn't thievery. Often it'll take longer than the quote in "real time" due to how thorough they are. I don't charge my customers on the back end for my thorough work, I do that on the front end, so they don't pay MORE than expected.

You really don't grasp the idea of business.

Different business, troll.
I would bill for whatever was quoted and signed into contract. No more, no less.

That is up for you to do, in automotive repair, there is no certainty that it'll take under, equal to, or over the book rate.

The book rate is just an "idea" of how long it could take. Some mechanics are very fast, some take twice as long. I only adjust the book hour so that I know the job gets done right, and not cut corners due to speed.

I also don't adjust the book on a per customer basis. It is done when the software is setup, and never touched again after that.

So if you book for 8.....but your mechanic is slow and takes 12......the customer doesn't get charged those extra 4 hours.....correct?

Wierd...I guess it can be as high as 25%. If they're lucky, you give them a discount and only rip them off by billing them for 10% more time than it actually took.

unless I'm mistaked the book is not binding, only a guide. There is nothing unethical IMHO about padding book times. If history has shown a given shop cannot complete the work in the "book time" then they need to bill whatever the actual time is.

depends on how it was quote. If it was T&M, 5. If it was a lump sum or NTE, 8.

What a great guy. All you're really doing is checking a book to see how long a job should take (knowing full well that it won't even take you as long as the book estimates), upping the number of hours by 10-25%, billing the customer accordingly, and calling yourself thorough.

You are correct, you aren't paying for my slow mechanic, I am.

That isn't how it works, but you sure are trying hard to make me look like a bad guy here.

This is how it works.

You walk in, hand me the keys, My mechanic and I look at the car, noting what needs to get fixed.

I write up a quote.
I show you the quote.
You either agree or disagree with the quote.
If you agree, you sign the quote, I fix the car, you pay when it is done.
If you disagree, we figure out why you disagree (Probably because my quote has a service on there you don't feel you need to do just yet, like an oil change or something)
I write up a new quote, you agree, you sign, I fix it, you pay when it is done.

That is it. I don't charge you more when it is done, I don't charge you less when it is done. You signed a contract for me to perform a service. The hours are an estimate, the cost is based on my rate and the estimated time to accomplish the job.

That's it.

That is how it works in any lawfully established automotive repair shop, or shall I say, how it is SUPPOSED to work.

I totally agree. That's not what he's doing, though. If the book says 3 hours, he's doing it in 2.5 hours and billing the customer for 3.5 hours.

I don't think you understand the process.

Similarly in construction, there are Cost Books which give contractors industry averages for performing various types of work. Some bid straight off them, some adjust, and some (like me) only use them when dealing with something we don't have a grasp on.

If the cost book tells me it will take 43 hours to install wood trim in a fancy conference room, and it only takes me 30, that's my windfall. It helps even out the next job when it takes us 70 hours instead of 43.

And again, as I understand it, he is using the "book" to quote repairs, then billing what he quoted. Nothing wrong with that.

So? The book is simply industry averages. There is NOTHING requiring a mechanic to bill "by the book" or even use "the book" at all.

He's telling the customer 3.5 hrs and billing 3.5 hrs.

Right. Buyer beware.

You're just taking advantage of the fact that the old lady walking in the door doesn't know how long a job actually takes.

Why don't you try telling your next customer, "according to the professional estimating tool, this job should take three hours. I'm only going to spend two and a half hours working on it, but I'm going to bill you for three and a half hours."

He's LYING to the customer when he bills them for more work than be did.

This.

You are not mistaken, book times are just rough guides on how long it should take a mechanic without breaks, without other cars, to finish the job. I adjust it by 10% to account for phone calls, working on multiple cars at a time, and making sure the work is done right, so that my mechanics don't have to rush.

I don't bill you more or less than what our contract states.

No, that is not how it works at all.

When I pull up the book and add all of the services in it, it already has the scaling factor included.

More often than not, it takes every bit of the book time, if not more, to complete the task, and that is almost always due to my mechanics being thorough, making sure they don't rush, triple check their work, and even do a "check out" report that most shops do not do.

our "Check out" report is simply an inspect of the vehicle inside and out, to make sure we did or did not damage the vehicle in any way while we were working on it. We also do a "check in" report that most shops do not do, because it takes time.

I am incredibly thorough, and I like to cover my ass. In all honesty, when all is said and done, you might pay me for 2.2 hours on an estimated 2 hour job, but I probably had a mechanic working 3.5 hours on your vehicle.

where?

How big is your shop?

I'd love to be your property management company. You'd get a bill for a month and a quarter's worth of rent every month. I'd tell you it's because it's such a prime location.

When you complained that the location should have already been factored into the rent, I'd explain that I was just being thorough.

that makes zero sense.

you have yet to show where he has billed a customer MORE than what they were quoted.

you usually seem to have a pretty good head on your shoulders, but you're being obtuse here or just ignorant.

Says who?

The book tells me it is 2 hours, you get charged 2 hours. I don't SEE the scaling factor there, and neither do you. I don't add anything else in, it is in the software to add 10% there, and that 10% accounts for our thorough work and all of the other services we offer that NOBODY else offers.

Exactly, and no, he doesn't get the idea of business here, nor does he understand that in every field of business where this is applicable, it is done the EXACT same way.

Bingo.

You really do not get it at all.

When that lady comes in and tells me she needs her intake manifold gaskets changed, I quote her for the part, the time it takes to do the job, the additional time to R&R the gasket, as the book shows it, any fluids I need, and any disposal.

I show this to her, she signs off on it, I do the repair, she pays me when it is done.

It doesn't matter if you are 5, 55, man, or woman, the quote is going to be the same. I don't profile who comes in, and the software doesn't allow me to add hours or services to the bill without them getting shown, You literally do NOT understand the process here.

This is what it will look like

-Intake Manifold Gasket 34.99
--Intake Manifold Gasket@2.2 Hours
-Disposal @2.99

Subtotal= 213.98
+ Tax @ 8.65%
Total= 232.49

If I add anything else on there, it shows it on the quote right underneath that disposal. You literally CANNOT simply add hours to a quote without seeing what they are for. I can't scale individual hours either. If it says 3.2 hours for a manifold, and then .7 hours for a gasket, I can't make them bigger or smaller, they are scaled wholly across the book and do not allow for individual scaling.
No I'm not.

This guy has common sense.

Thank you, this is exactly what I"m getting at.

I'm trying to be as transparent as I can possibly be here, without just telling him to **** off, but I'd rather everyone KNOW how the industry works, than insult a mechanic for 20 bucks.

Know what I mean.

He's under the idea that I'm quoting grandma 8.5 hours for an intake manifold gasket that will take 3 hours, but doesn't understand that everything is done on the computer and every part and service is itemized there for everything that I charge, that I cannot individually scale a task's hours, or add in a charge that doesn't get printed on the paper.

He's not charging for anything not on the quote, but he is putting things on the quote that aren't actually happening. He is intentionally quoting the job to take longer than it will and should require.

He can put blinker fluid and muffler bearings in the quote in hopes that the customer won't know any better, and it's the same thing.

What am I putting in the quote that isn't actually happening? Please explain that.

Also, believe it or not, some cars have muffler bearings.

The thing that is annoying about this to me is that there are mechanics out there that treat "the book" like gospel and now I find out that the numbers are likely pulled out of their ass.

For example, when I had my '05 Silverado, I had an issue with the intermediate steering shaft clunking. GM used a shitty part in the '99 - '06 Pickups that would run dry of grease and make clunking noises at low speed turns. It's a known issue and GM put out an updated replacement part.

Anyway, I took it to the local dealer and they insisted that they had to charge me for labor and that "the book" said 2 hours. So it was around $150 labor plus parts to fix GMs screw-up.

I ended up hiring a Mexican to do it.

Actually, I didn't. I bought a replacement shaft from NAPA and did it myself. Despite being an all-thumbs mechanic, I did it in less than a half hour. I don't mind paying a fair price and I care more for the bottom line price than the number of hours or whatever, but hiding behind the book to justify exorbitant prices is uncool.

If I quote someone 8 hours to work on a website....it's because worst case scenario....it should only take me 8 hours to do it. If I complete it in 5 hours.....I charge them 5 hours because that's the ACTUAL amount of time that it took me to do it.

You are charging for hours of labor that weren't performed and shouldn't have been needed knowing fully well that you weren't going to spend that long on the job.

You have no idea how a businesses works.

And those prices are exorbitantly high because they have to run a business. At 110 dollars per labor hour, they are going to make a killing, but it costs them money to run that business with all of the people they have to pay.

Despite that, there are people out there that want their cars worked on ONLY by trained professionals backed by insurance and a warranty, that is what you pay for at a dealership.

Smaller ships like my previous two shops, can give you that same quality of work, insurance, and warranty, at about 60% of the cost, by lowering my labor rate and not scaling my book time nearly as much as a dealership does. Not to mention, I have the ability to "haggle" my own prices down to make a sale if I need to, that doesn't happen at the dealership.


If I told you what the dealership marks its parts costs up by, and how much they inflate their book numbers, you guys would shit yourselves.